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Quote by Paul Fussell

“I am working on a book urging the beating to death of baby whales using the dead bodies of baby seals.”

Quote by Paul Fussell

Book:Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

Work

Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

This book delves into the complexities of the American status system, examining how social class shapes opportunities, behaviors, and perceptions. It analyzes the various factors that contribute to social stratification and discusses the implications of class divisions in contemporary American life. more

Author

Paul Fussell was an American historian renowned for his profound insights into 20th-century American society and culture. His works explored American military history, consumerism, and the changes in post-war American life. more

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“There is something within our biological structure that screams out and says it is morally wrong for the old to outlive the young. This is one of the times when God doesn’t seem to make sense. This is the worst that life gets.”

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“Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.”

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“No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe.”

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“One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”

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“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”

“Misgovernment is of four kinds, often in combination. They are: 1) tyranny or oppression, of which history provides so many well-known examples that they do not need citing; 2) excessive ambition, such as Athens' attempted conquest of Sicily in the Peloponnesian War, Philip II's of England via the Armada, Germany's twice-attempted rule of Europe by a self-conceived master race, Japan's bid for an empire of Asia; 3) incompetence or decadence, as in the case of the late Roman empire, the last Romanovs and the last imperial dynasty of China; and finally 4) folly or perversity.”

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